A Jaguar's Kiss

FOUR

How could she have said something so vile to him?

Natalie felt everything inside her cringing, searing from the knowledge that she had struck out in the most unacceptable way and accused him of something so vicious.

This man, who had set aside his pride to read those stupid dating books, who had tried to charm her, tried to ease her into his arms rather than taking what he wanted.

And it had almost worked. Hell, it was working, and she had known it; it was the reason she had been confrontational. It was the reason she had fought each overture he made so fiercely. Because he was making her feel, making her want things she told herself didn’t exist.

She had suspected, in some ways she had known after she met Callan Lyons and his mate/wife, Merinus, that the rumors of a strange mating hormone/bond, and the deceleration of aging that the tabloids ran such stories around, were true.

Neither Callan nor Merinus had aged so much as a year in the past ten years; the same went for the others who had played prominent roles in the Breed freedoms and had married. Or mated, as the Breeds referred to it.

He stood stiff, still, in front of that grill, struggling, she knew, with his own emotions. She had seen the struggle in his expression before and saw it now in the tense set of his shoulders.

She wanted to touch him, ease him, and yet the fear of pushing her own arousal to that point terrified her. But she couldn’t leave him hurting, believing she felt that. She moved to him, laid her head against his back, and felt his hard indrawn breath, the minute easing of the tension.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered again.

His nod, a hard jerk of his head, was enough.

Moving back, Natalie sat down in the padded chair that was next to the patio table. Saban’s back was to her, his arms spread until his hands rested on the wooden table sides of the large grill. The muscles of his back were tense, his head lifted as he stared into the forest. She could almost feel his need to run.

Just as she had felt it before over the past month. A unique tension that gripped him despite his usual teasing manner. She wondered how much of it was an act and how much was truly a part of Saban Broussard.

“Most of what you know of me is a lie then.” He shrugged, his back still to her. “I’m snarly, I’m arrogant, I hate jokes, and baseball fascinates me.” He glanced down then. “I do like to cook.”

“The teasing and flirting?” Parts of it she had liked; others she realized she had somehow known were all an act.

“I’m not much of a lady’s man, cher,” he grunted. “I’m a killer. I was created a killer, raised as one, and once I escaped, I killed to stay free.”

Natalie watched as he turned to her, his expression still and composed; only his eyes raged with emotion.

“I know what the Breeds are, Saban,” she murmured. “And now I know why you tried to be something you weren’t.” She shook her head stiffly.

God, this arousal stuff was killing her. It was bad enough before that kiss, but now it was tearing through her system, nearly making her ill.

And he knew it, he could smell it, he could feel it.

“Natalie, take the hormones,” he said, his voice gravelly as she watched his fingers form fists against the wood. “Go inside. I’ll fix the steaks, and I’ll be in in a bit.”

“Has it been like this for you since the beginning?” She needed to know what she was dealing with, who she was dealing with.

“A week before I came to your door and introduced myself, I watched you.” She jerked in surprise, watching as his head lifted to the soft breeze that fell from the mountains around them. “You were alone in the house, your bedroom window was open, and the scent of your arousal drifted down to me. You were masturbating.”

Natalie felt her face flame and had no chance to hide her embarrassment as he swung around and crouched in front of her chair.

“I could taste your sweet scent on the air,” he growled, his face only inches from hers. “Needy, aching, your pussy throbbed for satisfaction, and you found none.” His lips pulled back from his teeth in hunger, his eyes burned with it as his voice lowered. “And I knew I could ease you. I knew I longed to ease you with a strength that overcame even my need to kill the bastards who hunted us for so many years. And I knew, tasting the scent of your juices in the air, that you were my mate.”

“How?” Desperation filled her, longing, fear, so many emotions, so many needs she couldn’t make sense of. “How could you have known, Saban?”

He took her hand before she could draw back and flatted her palm over his heart. “That night was the first time in my life that I realized my heart beat. In my life I have never known fear, nor excitement, or nerves. I was always calm. Always steady. But that night, Natalie. That night, I felt all those things, cher. I felt them rip inside me, tear through my soul, and fill me. Without control. Without volition. I had no choice, because you’re the other part of me. My soul, boo. My mate.”

He should have looked ridiculous, kneeling there in front of her, her hand pressed into his chest, unfortunately, he looked anything but ridiculous. He looked arrogant; he looked like a man determined to claim his woman.

Sexy, savage, hungry. He wasn’t pleading, he wasn’t asking permission for her heart. He was claiming it, and as far as he was concerned, it was that simple.

“It doesn’t work that way.” She could feel his heart beneath her hand, strong and steady. “Just because you want it—”

“Doesn’t make it so.” His lips twisted with an edge of bitterness. “But the mating heat does make it so, Natalie. What you said, about the choice being taken from you, may be true from your perspective, at this moment. But it isn’t true of mine. If you weren’t meant to be my heart, and I yours, then it would not have happened.”

“Saban, there are no guarantees in life,” she snapped, frustrated, feeling the pressure his certainty brought her. “I just walked out of a marriage that nearly destroyed me with one controlling man. I don’t need to jump out of the frying pan into the fire.”

As the last word left her lips, heat bloomed in her womb, between her thighs. Her teeth clenched on the agonizing pleasure. It wasn’t pain. It was a need for pleasure, and it was sharp, intense, destructive to her self-control.

“I took the damned pills,” she groaned, wrapping her arms around her stomach, pressing, fighting against the clenching, spasming need that tore through it.

“The hormone in the kiss raises the arousal level,” he said softly. “The hormone in the male semen eases it somewhat.”

He pushed her hair back from her face, his hard hands stroking pure pleasure along the sides of her face.

“I suspected.” She shook her head. “The tabloid stories, all those silly articles. When I came to Sanctuary and met Callan and Merinus, I suspected parts of them were true.”

And she had been intrigued, curious about the Breed who watched her with hungry eyes and pretended to be something, someone he wasn’t.

“Parts of them are true,” he agreed. “Let me ease you, Natalie. Let me take away the pain.”

His lips touched hers, a butterfly kiss that had her own lips parting and a breath of need escaping her lips.

“I’m going to regret this.” She knew she was.

Natalie opened her eyes and stared back at him, desperation, need, and fear roiling together inside her. “I can’t handle shackles, Saban. I can’t be controlled.” The fear of it was ripping through her mind, destroying the balance she had found after her divorce.

Because she was being controlled. By the mating hormone he had spilled into her system, by her own body, by needs she couldn’t deny because everything inside her was demanding his touch.

“I’ll call Ely,” he growled. “She can strengthen the pills.”

Natalie shook her head, her hands jerking up to cover his as he moved to straighten away from her.

“Touch me. Just touch me.” She could feel the perspiration pouring from her face now, the weakness invading her body. “Saban, this is worse than she predicted. Oh God, this is bad.”

Dr. Ely Morrey had explained what she could expect in the first stage of the mating heat. But she’d said it only got worse after mates had sex that first time. Before that, the arousal would stay steady, a little uncomfortable, until she and Saban actually had sex.

If it was worse than this later, then she didn’t know if she would survive it.

She stared back at Saban, seeing the agony in his eyes, the knowledge that he hadn’t expected this either.

“Cher, Natalie.” His thumbs smoothed over her cheeks. “Go inside, away from me. I’ll finish this meal for you. You can eat.”

She shook her head.

“If we stay out here, bébé, we’ll end up fucking out here.” He was breathing hard, his chest moving fast and hard as his hands tightened around her face. “The scent of your arousal is making me insane. My control is thin enough as it is.”

She licked her lips nervously. “Come in with me.”

The fact that she had made the decision, that she was actually considering having sex with him at this point shouldn’t have surprised her, but it did. This arousal wasn’t painful, not in the sense of levels or degrees of pain. Instead, it was imperative, desperate; her skin was crawling with the need to be touched, her mouth watering for the taste of him.

“Go in,” he said tightly. “I’ll bring the food back in and come to you.”

She shook her head.

“Get away from me, Natalie,” he snarled, jerking to his feet, surprising her with his vehemence. “Go inside. Five minutes. Give yourself five minutes away from me, make certain without me that your wisest choice isn’t to call Ely first.”

“You started this.” She jumped from the chair and faced him, anger rising inside her, pounding through her blood and spearing through her senses as it strengthened along with the lust. “You shot this freaky hormone into my system; now you can take care of it.”

If she could just get past the need, just for a few minutes, just long enough to think again, then she could figure it out. But she knew, until he touched her, until he took her, there wasn’t going to be a clear thought in her head.

A growl rumbled in his throat. “It’s too strong right now,” he grated. “I won’t take you easy.”

“If you tried to take me easy, I might have to kill you,” she raged back, her hands fisting in his shirt as she felt the flames of need licking over her flesh. “Saban, please, just touch me. Do something, anything so I can think.”

“So you can figure a way out of this?” Bitterness filled his voice, but he was touching her, easing her backward into the house, the steaks forgotten.

“So I can figure out how to handle this.” Maybe she was accepting there was no way out of it, but she didn’t accept what she knew was coming from it.

She liked Saban. She hadn’t realized how much she liked him until she had to think about it, had to categorize the relationship that had developed. She cared for him. She would miss him, God, miss him so bad if he wasn’t here, but she didn’t love him. She didn’t want to love him. And she didn’t want to be controlled by him or some damned hormonal aphrodisiac.

The door locked behind him, and Natalie found herself lifted against him, his arms like steel bands around her as his kiss became a tease. He licked and nibbled at her lips, giving her just a taste of the spicy, storm-laden essence of his kiss. He made her crave more. Made her moan, her arms tighten around his neck, her tongue dip past his lips to taste more of him.

“We won’t make it to the bedroom if you keep this up,” he warned her, his voice dark, rough, a growling rasp that sent a shiver racing through her as one hand pushed beneath the elastic band of her pants to cup the curve of her cheek.

“So?” She didn’t care.

As he held her against him, her hands slid from around his neck to the buttons of his shirt. She wanted to feel him, wanted to touch him. The weeks he had followed her through the house that image had played out in her mind. Turning, ripping the buttons free and jerking the material from his body before rubbing against him like a cat. Like he had a habit of rubbing against her every chance he had.

She wanted him. She didn’t have to fight that want now; something had forced her into it, taken the choice out of her hands, and she suddenly wondered if that wasn’t a good thing. Would she have ever gone after the powerful, sexual beast this man was on her own?

Natalie tore her lips back from him, the teasing little tastes driving her insane. Her hands locked in the front of his shirt, and she ripped. Buttons scattered as a snarl left his lips, savage, animalistic, but his chest was finally bare. Sun-bronzed, hard, and tough, and free of hair except the nearly invisible, incredibly fine pelt that covered him.

“Oh, God.” This was better than chest hair. Perspiration gleamed on it now, making the soft hairs easier to see, and Natalie realized nothing could be more sensual. The thought of it rubbing against her sensitive nipples made her pussy clench, her juices spilling between the swollen folds between her thighs.

She had to taste him. As he carried her through the kitchen to the short hallway and the stairs, she licked his chest. His muscles jumped beneath the caress, his arms tightening as he stumbled against the wall.

The taste was there, and she lapped at it, kissing and licking her way to the flat, hard disc of his male nipple. Her teeth raked it, nipped at it. Natalie wondered vaguely if she had needed the hormone to become addicted to him, to hunger, to ache for his touch until she thought she’d die without it. Saban could be addictive on his own, she decided.

“Yes. Sweet mercy, cher.” He pressed her against the wall, his head falling back as she tongued the hard disc, licking at the stormy taste of perspiration, the heat and hardness of tough male flesh.

“You taste like your kiss,” she whimpered, licking over his chest again, little small laps that tasted his flesh and fired her blood. “Kiss me, Saban. I need your taste.”

The growl that came from his lips should have been frightening; it should have caused at least an edge of wariness to cool the lust burning inside her. Instead, it tightened her stomach, caused wet heat to spill from her vagina again. And when his lips covered hers, his tongue pushing inside, there was no room for wariness or for thought, only for hunger, only the desperate need inside her to replace the shadows in his eyes with light.

That thought pierced her as she felt him stumble up the stairs. She had seen those shadows when she first met him, wondered at them, ached for them.

She stroked her hands over his bare shoulders as her head bent, her lips suckling at the storm-ridden taste of his kiss. She loved storms. The smack of thunder, the flare of lightning, and it was all there in his kiss, in the desperate hunger she knew no other man had felt for her.

“Not gonna make it to the bed,” he groaned, tearing his lips from hers to pull at her shirt. “Take it off.”

She took it off and flung it behind them as he shed the scraps of his shirt and went to his knee on one step.

Natalie’s eyes widened as she straddled his thigh, the heated muscle pressing into her pussy, the force of her weight against him applying a teasing pressure against her clit. And when he moved her—oh Lord, his hands rocked her on his thigh, stroking her clit as his lips covered an inflamed nipple.

“Yes!” She hissed the word, her head falling back as she rode him in slow, undulating movements.

The rasp against her clit was exquisite, if she could just get the right pressure, the right position.

It was shockingly ecstatic, poised on the pinnacle of orgasm, certain when it came, it would take the top of her head off.

“Not like this.” Hard hands gripped her hips. “Inside you. I’ll be inside you when you come for me, cher. I’ll be damned if you’ll go without me.”